Piracy is not theft.
This reminds me of an awesome article that discusses the debate about whether or not "obsesity is a disease" http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...
Users used to pirate the software my first startup made, and that was not fun.
Just because users were doing something that negatively affected your business doesn't mean that you can redefine the English language just to make the general population more sympathetic to your complaints. e.g.:
My employer is *extorting* me by requiring that I work
for my pay cheque! I should be able to charge my employer
with extortion!There are a lot of things that aren't fun, and I certainly agree that people pirating your software can be a problem, but there is a distinct difference between theft and illicit downloading.
My big complaint with these analogies, though, isn't with their accuracy or lack therof. It's that they shed absolutely no light on whether copyright laws are good, bad or indifferent. They imply a moral imperative for copyright laws. This is, to put it mildly, controversial.
The theft analogy has no bearing on the question of whether the bad effects of copyright laws outweigh the good. I'd rather see the copyright lobby concentrate on that question (other than by quoting implausible estimates of the cost of "piracy"). That, at least, is a defensible position that can be debated constructively.
edit: spelling, punctuation.
One interesting point that was made was that if people keep calling it theft attitudes may change - or maybe it would simply pave the way to making it a criminal offence.
Ultimately how I always feel is this; if someone is pirating your work then I don't mind if you call them a thief (in anger or whatever). But if you're not one of those people then it's a weasel word to be using.